[ad_1]
Police data revealed on Thursday that the number of investment scams through social media has increased sharply in Japan since July 2023, as the public’s interest in stock trading increases due to the development of the Japanese market. .
According to the National Police Agency, the number of such scams carried out each month on social media such as Facebook and Instagram jumped from 204 in July last year to 369 in December. The rate of increase over the past six months was 85 to 120.
The amount of damage reached approximately 27.79 billion yen ($187 million), and there were many scams in which money was transferred to multiple accounts in a short period of time. The maximum amount of damages in the incident was 340 million yen.
A file photo taken on October 13, 2015 shows the building that houses the National Police Agency in Tokyo. (joint) == joint
The increase in investment fraud comes as the Japanese government revamped its NISA tax-free investment program in January to encourage people to shift their savings to stock market investments.
A senior agency official said the rise in online investment opportunities was also a contributing factor to the surge in fraud.
Meanwhile, the agency also said online romance scams, in which criminals use false identities to pretend to be lovers and scam money, increased throughout 2023, with 170 such incidents in December, up from 88 in January. He said that the number has almost doubled.
According to the agency, the total damage caused by romance scams is approximately 17.73 billion yen.
The agency announced that the amount of damage, including investment fraud using social media, will reach approximately 45.52 billion yen in 2023, exceeding communications fraud such as telephone fraud and cyber fraud by 1.4 billion yen.
According to the agency, 72.4% of victims of romance scams were encouraged to invest to continue their relationship.
More than half of the victims of romance and investment scams through social media were men in their 50s and 60s or women in their 40s and 50s.
According to the agency, scammers often first contact their victims through Facebook, Instagram, matching apps, etc., and then about 90% of them move on to exchanging messages using the Line app.
The agency notified prefectural police forces across the country to strengthen countermeasures and promote information sharing.
This is the first time that the agency has disclosed the number of investment scams and online romance scams using social media.
According to officials, it is suspected that a criminal organization based overseas was involved in the crime, and the agency plans to strengthen international cooperation.
Related coverage:
Police say the number of cyber frauds in Japan will increase by 8% in 2023, the highest in the past 10 years
Japanese police eradicate online criminal activity with the help of AI
Man arrested in Japan for stealing credit card information through web skimming
[ad_2]
Source link
